Stars Are Born: A History of the Michelin Guide in Poland

bottigleria1881_com_pl.jpg, default, Bottiglieria 1881 restaurant, photo: 1881.pl

The year was 2013, and Poland was quickly learning all about foams, powders, dehydration and sous-vide. A new interest in food was evident: bookstore shelves were quickly filling up with cookbooks and magazines such as 'Smak', 'Usta' and 'Kukbuk', first seasons of television shows such as 'MasterChef' and 'Top Chef' were on air and a new category of celebrity chefs was being forged.

Not one of them shone brighter than Wojciech Modest Amaro, who that year became the first Polish chef to receive a Michelin star. Thirteen years on, Poland has eleven starred establishments. Let’s take a deeper dive into how our fine-dining scene has evolved – and why cooks are so obsessed with these little stars anyway.

From tires to stars

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Old Michelin Guides, photo: Maremagnum / Getty Images

Picture image

old-michelin-guides-photo-maremagnum_GettyImages-sb10068316kb-001-s.jpg

It all started at the dawn of the 20^th century in the small French town of Clermont-Ferrand, where brothers André and Édouard Michelin founded a tire company. Even though there were less than 3,000 cars in the country at the time, their vision was grand – and they had great ideas on how to boost car and tire sales. One of them was to publish a small guide filled with maps and useful information for travellers, like how to change a tire and where to fuel their cars… as well as themselves, in the best hotels and restaurants. The first little red guide was published in 1900, but it was twenty years later when it was upgraded from a free leaflet to something more.

The hotel and restaurant recommendations gradually became more important, and the brothers decided to hire a group of mystery diners to review the establishments. Six years later the first stars were awarded and in 1931 the hierarchy – from one to three stars – was introduced. To this day one Michelin star means: ‘High-quality cooking, worth a stop,’ two stars suggest ‘Excellent cooking, worth a detour,’ while three stars signify ‘Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey’. Stars quickly became synonymous with the highest standard of cooking: the use of quality products and classic techniques, as well as an elegant atmosphere. One of France’s greatest culinary masters, Paul Bocuse said that ‘Michelin is the only guide that counts’. Seven restaurants were awarded the highest honours in 1931, and among them were the legendary La Tour d’Argent in Paris (opened in 1582!) and La Mère Braziere led by Eugénie Brazier, one of the so called Mères Lyonnaises – accomplished female cooks who shaped gastronomy from the very beginning, which is important to note, as haute cuisine is still quite a male-dominated field.

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Attendees enjoy themselves during the reception for the 2025 Texas Michelin Awards Ceremony at the Wortham Theater Center in Houston on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, photo: Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

Picture image

michelin-guide-awards-ceremony-october-2025-fot-Houston-Chronicle-GettyImages-2244632186-s.jpg

While the French guide covered individual establishments outside of the country quite early on, only in the 1950s did it start publishing guides dedicated entirely to other countries (the first was Spain in 1952) and awarding them stars – Comme chez Sois in Brussels was given one in 1953. For years the guide was only interested in Western Europe – there’s still some controversy concerning its ‘French bias’ – and only expanded to North America, Asia, and Eastern Europe in the early 21^st century. In the nineties it started highlighting restaurants serving ‘exceptionally good food at moderate prices’ with a recognition called Bib Gourmand which was given a bit more liberally than stars – the first Polish establishment to get a Bib was U kucharzy, owned by the prominent Gessler family of restauranteurs.

The first restaurant from the former Eastern Bloc to receive a star was Allegro in Prague in 2008. Five years later the Michelin tires finally made their way to Poland: specifically, to Atelier Amaro in Warsaw.

Moments and experiences

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

Wojciech Modest Amaro during preparations for the opening of the Heart by Amaro restaurant in Zakopane, 2020, photo: Marek Podmokły / Agencja Wyborcza

Picture image

restauracja-amaro-zakopane-fot-marek-podmokly-AGW-MP200706_675703-s.jpg

‘He is a true artist, and in his case, the term is not meant metaphorically. Amaro proves that preparing food is just as creative an endeavour as working in the fine arts’, wrote leading Polish food critic Maciej Nowak in his review of the restaurant that revolutionised Poland’s fine dining scene of the time. Amaro had talent, a lot of experience in restaurants abroad, and a very clear vision of his goal – he wanted to do for Polish cuisine what people like Rene Redzepi had done for Scandinavian food: to create its fine dining version and put it on the culinary map.

He did that by pushing the mantra of ‘local, seasonal food’, which was popular at the time, to the extreme. He used Polish ingredients exclusively – there was no olive oil, nor pepper in Atelier Amaro. The menu consisted of ‘moments’ which were described by their three main ingredients such as ‘artichoke/boletus/nasturtium’ or ‘deer/salsify/hay’ (this way of presenting dishes quickly became omnipresent and quite tiring, when restaurants started to describe sandwiches as ‘bread/cheese/tomato’) and changed every week. Amaro created a whole Calendar of Nature which aimed to capture every ingredient at its absolute peek.

Amaro was able to keep his star until the closure of his restaurant which happened during the pandemic. In 2016, his Atelier was joined by another Warsaw restaurant, the molecular gastronomy focused Senses (since then it closed as well, but chef Andrea Camastra now holds a Michelin star for his work in another place – NUTA). 2023 was again a landmark year for Poland, as Przemysław Klima’s restaurant Bottiglieria 1881 in Kraków became the first spot to receive two stars.

In 2020, Klima was the youngest Polish chef to receive a star and since then has become a bit of a ‘celebrity chef’. He published a couple of cookbooks, became a judge on the Polish edition of MasterChef and opened a more casual spot called Bufet. Klima created his fine dining restaurant in an old wine cellar in the Kazimierz district of Kraków after working in some of the best restaurants in the world, including Noma and Atelier Amaro. The whole menu of Bottiglieria 1881 (also known as the ‘Full Experience’) was inspired by ‘a holiday at babcia’s in the Polish countryside’ and consists of sixteen courses, concisely described as ‘leek and horseradish’, ‘trout and chamomile’ or ‘sweet cherry and wild rose’, but incredibly precise and precious. Known for a spontaneity that he likes to combine with hard work and technique – as reflected in the title of his book Fun Dining – Klima says he might dream of a third star, but he won’t let it become his goal.

Casually brilliant

Picture display

standardowy (864px desktop)

A dish from Beata Śniechowska's Michelin-starred restaurant BABA in Wrocław, photo: PION Studio / baba.wroclaw.pl

Picture image

baba-ig-5.png

Finally, this year came another breakthrough: thanks to the ongoing collaboration between Michelin and the Polish Tourism Organisation, in 2026 for the first time the inspectors visited not only the biggest Polish cities, but went all around the country, which resulted in twelve stars for Poland (including two for Bottiglieria 1881). Thanks to this approach places such as Steampunk housed in a 19th-century water tower in Pszczyna in the Silesian Voivodeship (head chef: Ziemowit Owczarz) could be taken into account; curiously Giewont in Kościelisko in the Tatra mountains led by chef Przemysław Sieradzki was already honoured in 2024, as the village was probably considered a nice detour during a trip to Kraków – and the restaurant truly worth taking the trip.

Wrocław was also a big winner, as two restaurants were found star-worthy: Most, set by the beautiful Tumski Bridge and led by chef Łukasz Budzik is an interesting concept as it shares its venue with a more casual Między mostami, which allows you to choose your adventure: either you go for the whole 8-course fine dining experience at Most, or pick a dish or two a la carte at Między mostami and eat great food from a starred crew without spending a fortune. Which brings us to the second Wrocław establishment which was awarded a star and quickly became the talk of the town: BABA, led by Beata Śniechowska, MasterChef winner and the only woman in the mix, was ‘promoted’ from Bib Gourmand to a star. The menu which includes dishes such as ‘onion toast, cheese, onion & kombu essence’ and ‘tribute to a Polish home: meatloaf royal, chives, umami puree & lettuce with wild garlic’ is not only reminiscent of a supercharged dinner at babcia’s, but also surprisingly economic for a Michelin-starred joint.

But maybe French formality, white tablecloths and a 15-course tasting menu is now a thing of the past and merely a stereotype – we’ve all heard of Michelin-starred Asian street food – and we shouldn’t be surprised when more casual venues are recognised. As Śniechowska said in an interview with Małgosia Minta: ‘The world of gastronomy is changing rapidly, and I’m thrilled that the Michelin Guide can now recognise these places without requiring them to lose their natural essence – without the need for a rigid formality or a formal tasting ritual’.

Famously, chefs never know who the mysterious Michelin inspectors are. In an interview Przemek Klima wondered if one of them might have been a guest who approached him after dinner and said: ‘Do what you are doing, and great things will come’. For some hard-working, talented Polish chefs they already have. For others – they surely will.

Language English